Hospital modernisation could be accelerated

Tuesday 21 April 2020

The States will be "forced to re-prioritise" by the corona virus, meaning some major capital projects will likely need to be shelved, others delayed and some accelerated in response to changing needs.

Several major States projects, including the £157m transformation of secondary and post-16 education and the £44m first phase of a long-term modernisation of the hospital, have been given the green light in the last 12 months.

However, the environment in which the States of Guernsey is operating has changed dramatically since due to the corona virus pandemic. That has led to the cancellation of the annual Future Guernsey Plan debate, which was scheduled to happen today,.

There has also been an acknowledgement from senior Deputies that some projects which were deemed to be priorities previously will now have to be shelved, although none of the most high-profile capital programmes have been named as possible casualties to date.

Express asked about the multi million pound plans for education and health during yesterday's press briefing. 

Chief Minister Gavin St Pier said it is not yet clear what the consequences will be. What is clear, however, is that there will be a need for re-prioritisation, with the States set to use £100m from the rainy day fund and up to £500m in borrowing - more about which can be read HERE.

"My best guess is that it will impact significantly on some of the future planning and possibly the timing of some capital projects and there may be things we want to be accelerating rather than delaying if we’re thinking about certain sectors of our economy."

Out of necessity, the States will have to commit to real prioritisation in the way that hasn't quite clicked in the last few years.

— Christopher Green (@deputycgreen) April 20, 2020

“We have struggled for four years with the States of Guernsey plan and to learn to prioritise and in my view we were making some progress in that, although it wasn’t something we were able to do naturally. This is like the knife through butter in terms of forcing the States to reprioritise," he said. 

On a more upbeat note, he said the States will seek out the "silver lining" and take advantage of the "strategic opportunities for stepped change" that can be found.

Health &Social Care President Heidi Soulsby said her committee had already begun that process of re-prioritisation.

That does, however, work both ways, and the planned hospital modernisation project, worth almost £100m in total, may be moved to the front of the queue. 

“In certain areas we are saying “we shouldn’t be doing that now” and I think that’s going to have to happen across committees sadly, but other aspects as Gavin said we might want to accelerate. Parts of the hospital changes we are proposing are things we might want to accelerate as that would benefit us in the current crisis and the future.

“This is a watershed moment and we are going to have to think about not seeing everything as a priority anymore but what really matters."